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It is preaching that is uninterested, modest and even tentative when it comes to the preacher’s own opinions and status while being passionate, courageous and authoritative when it comes to God’s Word.

In order to preach expository messages the preacher must have a humble attitude towards himself. For the purpose of expository preaching is “to facilitate an encounter. ‘The great encounter, however is not between the preacher and people. It is between God and the people.'” (p.325)

The preacher must have a humble attitude towards the text. “The Christian preacher is to be neither a speculator who invents new doctrines which please him, nor an editor who excises old doctrines which displease him, but a steward, God’s steward, dispensing faithfully to God’s household the truths committed to him in Scripture, nothing less and nothing else.” (p.324)

This humble attitude towards the text will result in authoritative, courageous preaching. “The expositor is only to provide the mouth and lips for the passage itself, so that the Word may advance…The really great preachers…are in fact, only servants of the Scriptures.” (p.132) “Our task as Christian preachers is not subserviently to answer all the questions which men put to us, nor to attempt to meet all the demands which are made on us; nor hesitantly to make tentative suggestions to the philosophically minded; but rather to proclaim a message which is dogmatic because it is divine. The preacher’s responsibility is proclamation, not discussion.” (p.110, The Preacher’s Portrait)

Expository preaching begins with a mindset towards preaching that views the preacher as a servant to the text whose job it is to accurately explain the meaning of the text and passionately communicate its significance for contemporary listeners so that they might develop a biblical way of viewing the world and might be able to apply the truths they have heard to their lives, thus exalting Christ and building up His Church.

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